Difficulties in culturing spirochetes, including Borrelia burgdorferi, Borrelia recurrentis and Treponema pallidum, have created unique challenges in studying, diagnosing and treating the diseases associated with these microorganisms, such as Lyme disease, relapsing fever, syphilis and multiple sclerosis.
Lyme disease, for example, is an infectious disease caused by infection with Borrelia burgdorferi, typically associated with a tick bite. Lyme disease presents with a multitude of variable symptoms, including fever, headache, fatigue, depression, and muscle soreness. The hallmark of Lyme disease is a bullseye-shaped skin rash, which develops in a majority of patients shortly after the tick bite. Despite this characteristic symptom, Lyme disease is routinely misdiagnosed as the flu, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease ADD/ADhD, autism, juvenile arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, reactive arthritis, infectious arthritis, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, Raynaud's Syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, interstitial cystis, gastroesophageal reflux disease, Fifth Disease, multiple sclerosis, scleroderma, lupus, early ALS, Crohn's disease, Ménières syndrome, Sjogren's syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, colitis, prostatitis, psychiatric disorders, bipolar, depression, encephalitis, sleep disorders, or thyroid disease.
In view of the complex and variable symptoms that present in spirochete infections, such as Lyme disease, the most reliable method of diagnosis is direct identification of the invasive spirochete. In many cases, identification of an invasive spirochete requires culturing the spirochete from a biological sample, such as a blood sample or a skin punch.
Attempts to culture spirochetes have yielded inconsistent results. For example, a method purported to successfully culture and identify Borrelia burgdorferi in over 90% of patients suffering from Lyme disease (Phillips et al., Infection, (1998) 26(6):364-367) could not be repeated in other clinics (Marques et al, J. Clin. Microb., (2000) 38(11):4239-4241). Such discrepancies have helped fuel the controversial debate between medical experts about the existence of chronic Lyme disease (see, e.g., Grant, E. “Lyme Disease Controversy Comes to the Capitol” NHPR News, Feb. 1, 2010, available at www.nhpr.org/node/29157).
Further, spirochete cultures typically need to be cultured for 3-4 weeks before diagnostic tests or genotyping can be performed. Most other bacterial infections can be diagnosed within hours, not weeks. Accordingly, patients suffering from a spirochete infection must suffer for weeks or months before their infection can be successfully identified and treated. Thus, a reliable culture method with a shorter incubation time can help in the rapid diagnosis and identification of a treatment plan more likely to succeed.